“I’m OK,” she said, her voice trembling. “It’s just my arm.” She held it out.
Relief rushed through him, leaving him weak as he saw that the injury was minor. The bullet’s head must have just missed her; its body had trenched into the side of her forearm as she’d put it up to defend herself. The wound was small but deep; it had to hurt like hell.
He gripped her other arm tightly. “Is that the only place you’re hurt?”
She nodded, her lips pale. “I think so.”
“Then come on, let’s get the hell out of here before his friends show up.” Helping Willow to her feet, Alex picked up the rifle that she’d dropped. Cully’s cell phone was lying on the floor beside it; he stomped it hard a few times, until the display screen cracked and went blank.
Cully had staggered to his feet, too. He held on to the back of a chair as he clutched his shoulder; blood twined over his fingers. “Alex, I swear to you — you’re making a big mistake,” he panted.
His eyes were bright blue, almost as familiar to Alex as his own. A hard pain clenched in Alex’s chest as they regarded each other. Brothers, he had said. The man had been more like a father to him; Alex had looked up to Cully more than anyone he’d ever known.
“Yeah, I know I am,” he said softly. “I should kill you — the old Cully would have thanked me for it.”
WE RAN FOR THE GATES, our footsteps thudding on the baking concrete. With every step, pain burst through my arm; blood was streaming down it in ribbons. I gritted my teeth and shoved the pain aside. I was not going to slow us down.
A dusty black 4x4 truck sat parked outside the gate beside the Chevy; in the back through its tinted windows, I could just make out stacks of boxes. Alex helped me climb up onto the passenger’s side, his hand strong under my good arm. He grabbed our things from the Chevy, then flung them in the back and jumped into the driver’s seat. A second later, we were roaring off, bouncing and jolting over the rough earth as clouds of dust swirled up behind us. My arm was so bloody now that I could barely see the skin. Closing my eyes, I slumped back in the seat, feeling like I might pass out.
A few minutes later, the truck stopped. My eyes flew open — and then widened as Alex yanked his white T-shirt over his head. “Give me your arm,” he said. He took out his pocketknife, started a tear in the shirt, then ripped it in half and folded the material into a long strip.
Shakily, I held my arm out. “What are you doing? Alex, we don’t have time —”
“We’ve got to stop the bleeding,” he said. “As soon as we’re safely away somewhere, I’ll dig out my first-aid kit.” Bending over me, he started wrapping the makeshift bandage around my arm. His head was bowed, his dark hair tousled.
My pulse pounded as I stared down at him. Even through my pain, I had to resist the urge to stroke my fingers through his hair or touch the smoothness of his bare shoulder. His hands as he worked were deft and sure, but so gentle — he was being careful not to hurt me any more than he had to. I sat very still, hardly daring to move.
I was in love with him.
The knowledge swept through me, truer than anything I’d ever known. Oh, my God, I was in love with him. And even though we were friends now, he had never said that what I was didn’t matter. How could it not matter to him? He’d been trained to kill angels since he was five years old.
Alex tucked the end of the shirt in, securing it. The AK on his bicep flexed slightly. “There,” he said.
I glanced down at my arm, hiding my face. “Thank you,” I said as I touched the soft white cloth. It had the same energy that his T-shirt in the motel room had, that same comforting sense of coming home.
I could feel his blue-gray eyes on me; I thought he was going to say something, but he didn’t. Then he started up the truck, and in seconds we were racing through the desert again. After creeping along in the Chevy, the truck was like flying. We came to the dried-out riverbed and rocked across to the other side. Finally we were swinging onto a dirt road, heading north.
Put it aside, I ordered myself harshly. Yes, I was in love with him. I had been for days, I realized — that moment on the side of the road when I’d wanted to hold him, and last night, when just feeling his fingers in my hair, his closeness, had made me want to faint.
But it didn’t change anything. He didn’t feel the same way about me; he couldn’t.
I took a deep breath. “So — what do we do now?” I asked.
The muscles of Alex’s bare arm moved as he shifted gears. “I don’t know,” he said. “If it’s true that the rest of the AKs are gone, then —” He broke off, shaking his head. “Christ, I really don’t know.”
We drove in silence for a while. Finally, twisting in his seat to peer over his shoulder, Alex reached behind him and pulled out a bottle of water from a cardboard case. He unscrewed the top and took a deep, thirsty swig. As he offered the bottle to me, I started to reach for it — but something caught the corner of my eye, and I turned to look behind us.
In the distance, five angels were heading toward us, flying in a starburst formation.
“Alex,” I said in a low voice.
He knew immediately. “How many?” he asked, glancing sharply at me.
“Five.” I couldn’t take my eyes off them. Even as I watched, they were drawing closer. They shone against the blue sky with a bright, burning white light, their celestial wings stroking the air. Even knowing what they were, what they did to people . . . I’d still never seen anything so heart-achingly beautiful in my life.
I cried out as the truck jolted. There was a squeal of brakes as Alex pulled off the road, bringing the 4x4 to a sudden sideways stop. “What are you doing?” I cried.
“We can’t outrun them,” he said. “And I can’t fight them from a moving truck.” He grabbed Cully’s rifle from the back; checked it for ammunition. As he jumped out of the truck and ran around to my side, I was already climbing down. Behind us, the angels were growing larger and larger in the sky.
Pressing against the side of the truck, Alex sank to his heels. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment as he centered himself. I felt his energy shifting, changing. Opening his eyes again, he took up a position behind the hood, sighting along the rifle’s barrel.
“Yep, five of them, all right,” he murmured. I could tell that he’d handled a rifle since he was a child; he held it as though it were a part of him.
Without taking his eyes off the approaching angels, Alex pressed the car keys into my hand, squeezing it briefly. “So, Willow, just — keep down, OK? With any luck, your angel will make an appearance again and protect you.”
I stared at him. “But what about you?”
He shook his head impatiently. “Don’t worry about me. If anything happens, take the truck and get away from here.”
My heart started thudding. “I thought you said we can’t outrun them,” I said faintly. The angels were very close now, only a couple of hundred yards away.
“I can’t; they’d catch up with me and tear my life energy away. You might have a chance, though, if your angel’s there.” Alex was crouched over the rifle, his body poised. He shot me a glance, and I saw the worry in his eyes, the concern for me. “I’m serious, Willow. If it’s looking bad, just get away from here.”
I’m not leaving you, I thought. There is no way that I’m leaving you. I gripped the keys hard; they dug into my palm.
I started as Alex shot, the echo booming across the desert like thunder. In the air, one of the angels vanished into falling petals of light. I huddled tightly against the truck. They were almost near enough now to see their faces; I could hear screams of rage, see the flurry of shining wings. Alex shot again and missed as one of the angels darted to the side; tracking it, he got it as it moved. It burst into pieces, confetti on fire with the sun.
Suddenly the remaining three angels were on us, their wings filling the sky. Alex started to fire again, and then ducked as one of them surged forward and swooped at him, trying to cuff
him with its wing; the others were just behind. Fear pummeled me as I realized that Alex could never fight this many up close.
They were going to kill him.
All at once there was a shifting, a stirring. I felt myself growing taller, and then I was in the air, hovering over my human body as it crouched on the dry, scrubby ground below. I had an angel’s body, pure white, brilliant in the sun. There was no fear, only determination. They were not going to kill me, and they were not going to kill Alex.
The two other angels attacked in a frenzy, going for my vulnerable human aura below. One dove straight for it, swiping with its wing. The desert turned on its side and rose up to meet me as I whipped smoothly in front of the angel, our wings glinting like sunlit mirrors. The blow deflected harmlessly; the angel gave a hiss of frustration. “Get away, half-human thing.”
I didn’t answer; I was already speeding away to block the other one, cutting sharply in the air and back again, wings flashing, faster than light.
Only seconds had passed. Alex fired again; the angel that had been on him exploded into fragments of light. Screeching in fury, the remaining two dove at him in a spiraling chaos of wings and radiance. I saw his jaw tense as he realized there was no way he could get them both; one of them was going to kill him.
The low mountains on the horizon shifted sideways, straightening again as I darted above him, spreading my wings.
Alex’s eyes widened as he saw me; I saw him lower his rifle slightly, staring upward. The two angels banked in opposite directions; the world turned this way and that as I swooped through the air above him, blocking them, keeping him safe with my wings. With a howl of anger, one of the angels veered back toward my human figure. Alex started to shoot; the other one, momentarily getting away from me, dove right at him. He looked up, startled, then hit the ground and rolled as its wings strained for him. It was on him; it was going to get him.
I didn’t hesitate. I dove in, forcing the angel back with my wings. I don’t know how I knew how to fight, but I did, and the angel screeched in fury, flapping and snarling at me. Dimly, I was aware that my human form was vulnerable, that the other angel was almost on it. I didn’t care. This angel was not going to hurt Alex.
A shot sounded as Alex fired. Light erupted around us like fireworks as the angel attacking my human form vanished.
The final angel howled in rage. It beat at me with its wings, trying to push me aside; then suddenly twisted backward, spiraling toward Alex, wings shrieking through the air. The desert turned as I dove to protect him again, but he rolled and shot from the ground — and the fifth angel’s halo buckled and trembled. A second later it was gone.
The sudden stillness was like a clear mountain pool. I hovered, gently moving my wings as shock and relief coursed through me. We were still alive. Somehow we were both all right. I saw Alex stagger to his feet and look up at me, his expression dazed — and then I drifted downward, merging with my human body on the ground.
I was me again.
Alex came over to me; dropped to his knees. He was breathing hard, his torso streaked with grime and sweat. We stared at each other. I’d been trying so hard to not really think about it, but now I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I started shaking as the reality of my otherness roared through me. This hadn’t been a brief flash or something that might have been a dream — it was utterly, achingly real.
I wasn’t completely human.
The words tore out of me. “Oh, God, I don’t want this. I don’t want it —” All at once I was clutching my forehead, crying; great sobs racked helplessly through me, shaking me like a terrier shakes a rat.
“Willow! Willow, don’t — please don’t —” Then Alex’s arms were wrapped tightly around me; he was holding me, rocking me. I slumped against his chest, crying as if I would never stop. “It’s OK,” he whispered, his voice ragged. He cradled me to him, dropped his head onto mine so that I felt his lips moving in my hair. “It’s OK.”
I cried for a long time, wetting his skin with my tears, so that his chest turned warm and slick under my cheek. Slowly, I became aware of the strength of his arms; the faint smell of his sweat. His heart, beating firmly against me.
I sat up, pulling away. I could hardly look at him. “How can you bear to touch me?” I wiped my eyes with my hand. “When you know I have this thing inside of me that’s like them?”
“No!” Alex’s voice was fierce. His hands clenched me by the shoulders as he forced me to look at him. “Willow, listen to me. You are nothing like them. Nothing.”
I swallowed hard, wanting so much to believe him. Hugging my elbows, I stared at the hard, bare mountains on the blue horizon, remembering how they had shifted as I flew.
“It’s never going to go away, is it?” I whispered.
Alex shook his head slowly. “No,” he said. His eyes were full of compassion.
Glancing down, I ran a finger across the scrabbly soil; it felt dry and gritty to my touch. Around us, the desert seemed to stretch out forever, the sun beating down on us like an oven. “Yeah,” I said finally. “I sort of knew that.” I cleared my throat, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak out.”
“Don’t apologize.” He helped me up, his hand remaining briefly on my arm. “Are you all right?”
I nodded, not really looking at him. “I’m fine.” But as I remembered what had happened, heat swept my cheeks. My angel had protected him, my love for him as obvious as if I’d blurted it out.
Alex blew out a breath. “OK, well — we’d better get away from here. Try to figure out what we’re going to do.”
We climbed back into the truck; my legs felt strange and wobbly. And belatedly, my arm was hurting again, throbbing dully under Alex’s T-shirt. He spun the steering wheel, and we lurched onto the dirt road. As we sped through the desert again, I leaned back against my seat, closing my eyes . . . and tried not to remember the sensation of having wings that glittered in the sunlight.
We came to a rest stop about an hour after we got back onto the state highway — a brown-painted building with vending machines on its porch and a few empty picnic tables scattered about. Alex pulled over behind the building, out of sight from the road.
In the ladies’ room, I swapped my T-shirt for a fresh one and stood at the sink, splashing water on my face. Some of it got on my hurt arm, turning streaks of dried blood a pale, runny red. The mirror was one of those metallic ones that you can hardly see yourself in, but I could see enough to realize that I looked like something out of a horror film, the way my hurt arm had red snaking down it. I smiled faintly as I imagined Nina: Oh, my God, it’s Willow Meets the Zombies! Somebody get Steven Spielberg on the phone! Then my smile faded. What would she say if she knew the truth about what I was? Trying not to think about it, I wiped the blood off with a moistened paper towel, working around the square of Alex’s T-shirt. Then I dug my hairbrush out of my bag and combed my hair back, tying it up into a knot.
“Hey,” said Alex’s voice. I glanced up; he was standing in the doorway holding a small first-aid kit. “Can I come in? We should probably get your arm fixed up.”
I could hardly meet his eyes. “Yeah, sure.”
He had pulled on a blue T-shirt and looked like he’d splashed water on himself, too; his arms and neck were slightly wet. So was his hair, as if he’d stuck it under the tap. The urge to touch the dampness of it where it lay against his neck was almost overwhelming. I glanced away.
Coming over to the sinks, Alex gently took my arm; I winced as he unwrapped the strip of T-shirt. Once it was washed off, the wound didn’t look that bad, though it was sort of deep. Alex cleaned it with a tube of antiseptic from the first-aid kit and wrapped gauze around it. His hands were skillful, efficient.
“You really know what you’re doing,” I said.
He shrugged, his dark hair falling across his forehead. “We had to do everything for ourselves at the camp. There wasn’t a doctor for miles.” He secured the gauze with tape, firming it in place w
ith a finger. The finger lingered for a moment, and then he let his hand drop. “OK, I think you’ll live.”
I touched the bandage. “So . . . what now?”
Alex shook his head as he started to pack up the first-aid kit. “I don’t know,” he said. “It sounds like there aren’t any AKs left now, apart from me. Even if there are, I don’t have any way to find them. Cully —” He stopped, pain creasing his face. “Cully was the one person I thought I could trust,” he said finally.
I didn’t want to ask, but I had to know. “Alex, do you still . . . do you want to stay together? You don’t have to, if you’d rather not. I could go off on my own, or something.”
His head jerked up. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re in so much danger with me, and —” I looked away, hugging myself. “And after what you saw today, I wouldn’t blame you. I mean, I know you’ve seen my angel before, but not like that. It must have been —” My mouth tightened; I couldn’t continue.
“Willow.” His voice was very soft. “What I saw was your angel protecting me. When I was in trouble, she protected me even before she protected you.” He leaned against the sink, not taking his gaze from my face. “Did you know she was doing it? Or was she something separate from you?”
I didn’t want to answer this; it felt too exposing, too raw. But to lie about it would be to deny everything I felt about him. “No, it wasn’t separate,” I whispered. “I didn’t know it was going to happen, but once it did . . . I was the angel. I — I didn’t want anything to hurt you.”
Alex didn’t say anything at first; my heart clenched at the expression in his eyes as he stared down at me. Finally he said huskily, “Jesus, Willow. You shouldn’t have done that, not for me. If anything had happened to you —” He broke off.
“I know.” I let out a breath. “I wouldn’t be able to defeat the angels.”
“That’s not what I meant.” His throat moved. “Yes, I still want to be with you,” he said.
Angel Burn Page 22
